Panel mounted connectors are known wherein a first connector is mounted in an opening in a panel for mating with a complementary connector, through the panel. The panel mounted connector can be either a receptacle connector or a mating plug connector. Often, such panel mounted connectors are sealed to or within the opening in the panel to seal the environment on one side of the panel from that on the other side of the panel and to seal the interconnection between the mating connectors.
An example of an application of panel mounted connectors is in the refrigeration industry, for example in appliances such as refrigerators and freezers. One side of a panel mounted connector will protrude through an opening in an appliance panel into the interior insulation. During manufacture, that side of the connector will be exposed to chemicals used to form the insulating foam. Before the foaming chemicals cure into dry insulation, they can contaminate the metal in the connector terminals resulting in incomplete electrical connections. Therefore, the connector itself is sealed, and the connector is sealed to the panel about the opening in which the connector is disposed. Usually, a gasket is positioned about the opening, sandwiched between the connector and the panel, and latch means are provided to securely hold the connector in the opening, in tight engagement with the gasket, to prevent any foaming chemicals from seeping around the connector and/or through the panel opening.
Because of known effectiveness, the latch means for such a panel mounted connector often is operative with or against the edge of the opening in the panel and latchable against an outside surface of the panel to secure the connector tightly within the opening. One of the problems with such panel mounted connectors is that the panel thickness may very. For efficiency and cost effectiveness, it is desirable to fabricate the latch means integral with the housing of the panel mounted connector. However, the latch means thereby becomes "married" to the connector and different connectors must be used for different thicknesses of panels. An alternative would be to use different latches operatively associated with a commonly constructed connector to accommodate panels of different thicknesses. However, this requires an inventory of different latches, and manufacturing and supplying different latches is not very cost effective.
This invention is directed to solving the above problems and satisfying the need of providing a panel mounted connector which has common latch means for accommodating panels of different thicknesses at the opening in the panel.